Departmental regulatory plan
Each Commonwealth agency that has responsibility for business regulation is required to publish a regulatory plan on its website early in each financial year. It contains information about:
- changes to business regulation that have occurred since the beginning of the previous financial year
- activities planned in the current financial year that could lead to changes to business regulation.
What regulation does a regulatory plan cover?
A regulatory plan covers business regulation. This includes primary legislation, subordinate legislation, quasi-regulation or treaties that directly affect business, have a significant indirect effect on business, or restrict competition.
Quasi-regulation refers to rules or arrangements where governments influence businesses to comply, but which do not form part of explicit government regulation.
A regulatory plan does not include information about the following:
- regulations that are likely to have no or a low impact on business and individuals or the economy
- regulations that involve consideration of specific government purchases
- regulations of a state or self-governing territory that apply in a non-self governing territory
- anticipated activity about which it would be inappropriate to publish information on grounds of confidentiality.
In addition, there may be regulatory activities undertaken during a particular financial year that were not included because they could not be foreseen when the plan was prepared.
In view of these exclusions, users should not regard a regulatory plan as a comprehensive source of information on past or potential changes to business regulation.
How up-to-date is information in this regulatory plan?
The regulatory plan was last updated in August 2011.
